


Red Eye

by enigma731



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Circus Performer Clint Barton, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton-centric, F/M, Gen, Mission Fic, Partnership
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 12:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5585092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Coulson looks far too pleased with himself, which Clint generally considers a sign that whatever he’s about to do will be an especially big pain in the ass for him and especially entertaining for his handler.</em> </p><p>Newly-partnered agents Barton and Romanoff are sent undercover to investigate an allegation of fraud at the county fair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queenofthepuddingbrains](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofthepuddingbrains/gifts).



> Apparently it's become something of a tradition to write fic inspired by my annual vacations with queenofthepuddingbrains. So, here's the 2015 edition. 
> 
> With many thanks to [kristinadavidovna ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kristinadavidovna) and [ samalander ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/samalander) for plot help and cheerleading.

The mission is a joke.

Well, more of a test than a joke, or at least Clint is pretty sure that’s the point. It could also be a punishment, he supposes, but regardless of what it is, he’s annoyed.

The person of interest is a middle-aged man named Mark Yazbeck whose sun-wrinkled skin reminds Clint of a crumpled up piece of paper. He’s the current owner of Yazbeck Amusements, a traveling carnival and midway company. A carny, as far as the public is concerned, but Clint can’t help viewing the commercialized rides, games, and food carts as something less than the authenticity he remembers from his own days with the circus. Regardless, Yazbeck and his show have become the latest suspects in a case of small scale identity fraud, which apparently now is S.H.I.E.L.D.’s problem. It’s admittedly deplorable, but also exactly the sort of thing local law enforcement or the FBI ought to be handling, Clint thinks, if Fury wasn’t in the market for a training exercise.

Really the assignment’s only saving grace is that it’s in rural Pennsylvania, which means they don’t have to fly anywhere, assuming things go according to plan. Plus Natasha is with him, though he’s relatively certain his ill-advised role as her supervising officer is to blame for this pain in the ass. It’s her first time out since clearing all the Level One requirements, but if S.H.I.E.L.D. wants a real field test for her, they’ll have to come up with something that will actually challenge her skills. Sending Natasha after one fraudster is like dropping a nuclear missile on a cockroach. Which, actually, is probably not the best metaphor Clint could have come up with if he really thinks about it, but he can’t help grinning at his own sense of humor anyway.

“Entertaining yourself?” Natasha asks from the passenger seat as he pulls off the interstate and onto a country backroad. She’s spent most of the trip in silence, studying a tablet with the mission brief in her lap, like she’s trying to decode some sort of secret in it. It’s a little unnerving, if he’s honest. 

Clint shrugs. “Rural America. Hilarious.”

The corners of her lips twitch as he glances over at her, but she doesn’t react otherwise, turning back to the tablet a moment later. He can only see her in his peripheral vision, but he still recognizes the familiar movement of her zooming in on some detail. 

“You know this job is just a hoop for us to jump through, right?” he asks, turning onto a street populated by dilapidated houses and foliage so overgrown that it looks like it would require a machete. “It doesn’t require strategy.”

She gives him a dark look. “Every job requires strategy.”

* * *

Coulson is already at the appointed rendezvous when Clint pulls up, despite the fact that they’re twenty minutes early. Sometimes he thinks Coulson must have his own private teleportation system just so he can pull off stunts like this. He also looks far too pleased with himself, which Clint generally considers a sign that whatever he’s about to do will be an especially big pain in the ass for him and especially entertaining for his handler. 

He doesn’t voice any of that aloud as he climbs out of the car, though. There’s something about Natasha that makes his usual irreverence for his job seem less appealing. Maybe it’s the fact that he wants to make a good impression on her, or maybe he just isn’t sure how far he can push it with her before crossing some invisible line. Or maybe neither. His emotions when it comes to his newly-established partnership are nearly as difficult to interpret as the few subtle expressions she shows to the world.

“You’ve been briefed?” asks Coulson, when they’re within earshot. 

Clint nods, noting that Natasha is still holding onto the tablet, although it will have to be left behind once they’re officially undercover. S.H.I.E.L.D. has strict policies about what kind of tech can go on this sort of field op, and all of the approved devices are much less obvious.

“This our gear?” Clint asks, gesturing to the trailer that’s parked against the crumbling curb.

“Yep,” says Coulson, holding out a set of keys. “Everything’s packed and ready to go. You’ll have to assemble it yourselves on site. Wouldn’t look right if you weren’t setting up with everybody else at the show.”

“You pick this out yourself?” Clint teases, cocking his head toward the trailer again. It’s a big, bulky thing that looks like it was probably designed in the ‘70s, and painted a shade of tan that does nothing to camouflage the many dents and scuffs in its surface.

Natasha walks up to the side of it and peers in the window. “S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t spare something--I don’t know, cleaner?”

Coulson just shrugs nonchalantly. “You’re undercover, agents. Authenticity is key.”

* * *

_FRIED CHEESE_ says the sign on the food cart they’ll be operating while quietly collecting intel on the company. The inside is small, cramped, and smells like a cross between old grease and dirty feet. 

Natasha makes a face when she steps inside, but doesn’t comment any further, just sets about investigating the various fryers and the food that needs to go in them. 

The menu includes half a dozen options which range from the obvious--nachos, fried cheese cubes--to the slightly horrifying. _Mozzarella fingers_ are the last item listed, and Clint can’t resist his own curiosity, peering at the ingredients for that one. They look like perfectly ordinary cheese sticks waiting to be battered and fried, and he decides he doesn’t want to know how they got a more creative name. But that doesn’t mean he can’t have his own fun with it.

“Poor Mozzarella Man,” says Clint, picking up a stick and taking a bite.

Natasha gives him a look. “Do I want to know?”

Clint shrugs. “I mean, apparently they cut off his fingers for us to eat.” 

He waggles his eyebrows encouragingly at her, but all that earns him is another steely glare. That might be terrifying under normal circumstances, but it’s undercut by the uniform shirts they’re both wearing for this assignment, orange polos printed with the bold-faced YA logo all over. It stands for Yazbeck Amusements, he knows, but that doesn’t stop the thing from making Clint picture a bunch of sugar-drunk kids running around karate-chopping the air while making sound effects.

“For our customers to eat,” Natasha corrects, snatching what’s left of the cheese out of his hand and throwing it into the trash. “Not you. If _you_ eat all our merchandise, we’re going to get fired. And then this job’s going to get a lot messier.”

Clint gives her his best hurt expression, deciding he also doesn’t want to know what _messier_ means by her standards. “Quality control.” That earns him an actual eye roll, which he decides he’s going to count as a win.

“You figure this out,” says Natasha, gesturing vaguely to the fryers and the food again. “I’m going to work on the register.”

He doesn’t bother to argue with that, just leans against the counter for a moment and watches her unpack the tech she’s been keeping disguised inside a purse. Yazbeck’s been making headlines in the carnival industry for going entirely cashless, requiring people to pay for their overpriced goodies with credit or debit cards. The better to steal your identity with, thinks Clint, smiling a little to himself as Natasha sets about bugging the system.

* * *

It takes the rest of the afternoon to finish setting up, because of course they’re using authentic equipment rather than any sort of fancy S.H.I.E.L.D. tech that could assemble itself for them. Clint wonders for a moment what happened to the people who ran the cheese cart before them. The official story is that they quit at a convenient moment, making it easy to establish cover. But now he thinks S.H.I.E.L.D. might have arranged for them to disappear. Not that a disappearance would seem particularly odd to a group of carnies constantly on the road. For all he knows, Coulson sent them on a surprise luxury vacation. 

It’s late evening by the time all of the attractions have been completed, the grounds prepared for the fair to open early in the morning. There’s something electric about the fair by night, far enough from any nearby city that the brightly-colored lights of the rides seem to echo the stars overhead, the air cool and sharp with the smoky scent of food being fried. It stirs something in his chest that feels dangerously like nostalgia, maybe even a bit of longing for the life he tries to look back on as little as possible. 

“Ready?” asks Natasha from somewhere over Clint’s shoulder and he jumps despite himself, having managed not to hear her leaving their trailer. 

He nods curtly, then pauses for a moment, taking her in. She’s still wearing the same ridiculous uniform she’s had on all day, her hair the same brassy contrast to the tacky bright lettering. But something’s changed in her, something in the subtle tension underlying the lines of her face or maybe the way that she holds herself. Earlier she looked out of place, still looked like a spy playing a role. Now, she _fits_ here, radiates the confident aloofness Clint’s seen people gain after being on the road for years. It’s a little scary, really, that he doesn’t think he would have been able to make her if she wasn’t on his team, and he has absolutely no clue just how she’s managed to do it.

“C’mon,” she prods. “You want to be late?”

Clint grins, because _that’s_ an area that’s still very much his home turf. “When you live on the road, late’s the name of the game.”

“Right,” says Natasha, starting toward the tents where they’re supposed to be gathering for the customary meeting that precedes opening day. “I guess you’d know. Forgot you used to be in the fair.”

“The circus,” Clint corrects. “Not the same thing as the fair.”

“Well,” she says dryly, “you’d know.”

“Damn straight,” says Clint, catching up to her in a few long strides.

They’re within earshot of the others in the company by the time it occurs to him that Natasha doesn’t forget things about people. Not ever. Not really. He stops short for a moment, watching her disappear into the crowd.

* * *

Surrounded by his employees and lit by the yellowish glow of a battery-powered camping lantern, Mark Yazbeck has the sort of magnetic charisma Clint’s learned to expect from people in this sort of business. It shouldn’t be a surprise, really--he’s had more than enough firsthand experiences with the type--yet Clint finds himself caught off-guard in this particular instance. It was something about the ID photos S.H.I.E.L.D. provided with the mission briefing, he thinks, or maybe the fact that his specific skill set seems utterly wasted on this particular assignment. He’s expected this group of carnies to seem inauthentic, somehow, in a nicely labeled _this-is-a-front-for-a-scam_ package. But it doesn’t work that way, of course. He’s seen that much for himself, after all.

“Last year,” says Yazbeck, “we gave Pennsylvania our best show to date. We sold more rides, more games, and more corn dogs than ever before in our thirteen years running!”

“Sounds like a scam in itself,” Natasha murmurs, somehow managing to materialize by Clint’s ear.

He swallows down the urge to jump again. He could have sworn she was several yards away mere seconds ago.

“That’s the business,” he shrugs, though his own instincts still want to discredit Yazbeck as well. Just the mission, he reminds himself. That’s the job they’re here to do. Have to keep thinking like an agent.

“We had a good year last year,” Yazbeck repeats, his voice rising as the night seems to grow impossibly more hushed in his shadow. “But does that mean we can kick back and relax?”

“No!” comes a shout from the back of the crowd, and Clint glances over his shoulder to see that the voice belongs to a gangly kid with sun-bleached hair and an acne-pocked face. The type who’s probably never known any sort of life other than one on the road.

“Right!” Yazbeck replies, his voice growing even louder. “What are we going to do?”

“Work harder!” comes another voice from the audience. Apparently this is a well-practiced routine. Maybe even more like a ritual, given that it’s happening under a tent, in the middle of nowhere, by the light of a thousand stars and half a dozen D-cell batteries.

“Work harder!” Yazbeck echoes, pumping his fist in the air like he’s a damn preacher.

“ _Work harder_!” the crowd repeats, and now the majority’s joined in, the chorus growing and accelerating into a full-on chant. 

The spectacle twists something in the pit of Clint’s stomach, makes the hairs at the nape of his neck stand at attention. It isn’t just the parts of this that feel uncomfortably familiar, he thinks. It’s something about the impotence of blind devotion that makes him wary, feels like watching a train about to careen off its track.

Suddenly he becomes aware of the fact that he’s the only one who’s quiet and still, probably stands out like exactly the sort of sore thumb S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are trained never to be. Turning to find Natasha, he realizes that she’s no longer at his shoulder, is now several paces in front of him, cheering giddily as she fist-bumps the shaggy-haired kid who first responded to Yazbeck’s call. 

Swallowing down an involuntary shudder, Clint backs his way into the shadows and hopes he’s managed to disappear.

* * *

By the time Natasha comes back from the meeting that was anything but, Clint’s already been in their trailer for nearly an hour. On the inside, it’s every bit as much the tired 1970s monstrosity he’d thought when Coulson first presented it to them. There’s a tiny, cramped kitchenette and table, the requisite bathroom, and a set of bunk beds, everything done up in scuffed wood paneling and obnoxious rusty orange. Plus the whole thing smells moldy, and he doesn’t even want to know where it’s been in its former life, before S.H.I.E.L.D. acquired it to torture unfortunate agents on assignments like this one. It’s the age and the grunge that bother him, he tells himself. Definitely not the fact that he and Barney spent a couple years living in a trailer that could have been this one’s green-upholstered sibling.

Natasha carries the smell of wood smoke in with her when she returns, and Clint tries to swallow down the sense of unease this whole thing has crawling over his skin again. 

“It past your bedtime already?” she asks, moving to stand in front of Clint as he sits on the bottom bunk. “Or did you just want to make sure you could stake out your territory first?”

Clint resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Figured there was nothing to see, beyond the weird chanting. Although I’m definitely starting to wonder if these people are actually a cult. You know, a fraud-worshipping cult.”

“Well,” she counters, stepping out of her shoes, “we definitely wouldn’t find out about anything worth seeing if we weren’t there.”

Clint sighs. “Fine. See anything worthwhile? Yazbeck tell all his employees to go steal lots of credit card and social security numbers?”

“No,” says Natasha, the sarcasm rolling right off her back, “but I got the lay of the land. Introduced myself to some people. Should be easier to look around tomorrow if they know who I am. Best to hide by looking like you have nothing to hide.”

“We have nothing to hide,” Clint echoes. “But I don’t think we need anything more than the bug you put in the computer system for this one. If Yazbeck’s stealing people’s information, that’s not exactly the kind of thing we’re going to be able to see out in the open.”

“So--what?” asks Natasha. “You thinking we’re just going to kick back and sell cheese for the next two days?”

“Well--yeah?” Clint shrugs. He hasn’t been planning to put that much effort into this assignment. Not when they can complete it without doing any sort of heavy lifting, and especially not considering that there aren’t even any lives at stake. “Pulling the data should be all we need to do.”

Natasha sighs, giving him the distinct impression that he’s hopeless. “And if we don’t find anything in the data? Are you prepared to just conclude that no crime is being committed here, without looking any further?”

He shrugs again, a little taken aback by how seriously she’s taking this. Then again, he’s not the one being evaluated. Technically. “Pretty much.”

Natasha shakes her head, picking up her bag from the floor and heading toward the bathroom. “I’m going to bed. Because I plan to do actual work tomorrow.”

Clint waits until she’s disappeared from view before slouching back against the pillows.

* * *

There’s a reason that Coulson generally saves the ops that involve undercover customer service for other agents. Well, several reasons, actually. First there was the incident at the upscale boutique--turns out the management generally frowns upon having their customers talked out of thousand dollar designer china sets. Then there was the assignment at Burger King--something about allowing the fries to catch fire being outside the bounds of _low profile_. And Clint is pretty sure he’s never going to live down the three hours his alias was employed at WalMart, ending in--well, pretty much everything there was a disaster.

But keeping up their cover as cheese peddlers does, in fact, require that at least one of them sticks it out and sells some cheese. And since Natasha disappeared sometime around dawn, presumably to begin the recon she’s so determined to do, that person happens to be Clint.

He’s expected to be miserable, between the repetitive task of dunking things into the fryer, waiting, and fishing them back out again, the overpowering smells of grease and cheese in the booth, and the confined space. What he hasn’t expected is for the people to be quite so insufferable.

* * *

“What can I get?” asks a woman with frizzy hair and a spattering of freckles. 

Clint blinks at her, wondering for a moment whether he’s misheard her question. She’s stood in line for at least ten minutes to get up to the window, and the booth clearly proclaims _FRIED CHEESE_ in at least half a dozen locations on its tiny exterior. But no, he isn’t mistaken, judging by the fact that she still hasn’t begun ordering.

“Menu’s there,” says Clint, pointing to the large-print list on the outside of the window.

“Oh.” She glances at the menu for a moment, then back at him. “I’ll take one.”

“One what?” asks Clint, feeling the muscles in his jaw tighten reflexively. 

“One _order_ ,” says the woman, starting to get impatient. 

“Fine,” says Clint, scooping an order of fried cheese cubes--item #1--into a basket and holding them out. “Six dollars.”

The woman nods dumbly and hands over her credit card.

* * *

“I’ll take one with powdered sugar, please,” says a red-faced man who will probably spend the rest of the week regretting the fact that he forgot sunscreen.

“Really?” asks Clint, feigning interest. “You want your powdered sugar on your nachos or your mozzarella sticks?”

The man’s lip twists into an expression of disgust. “On my _funnel cake_.”

“We’ve only got cheese,” says Clint, pointing at the next booth over. “Funnel cake is over there.”

* * *

Clint is about to congratulate himself on making it halfway through the morning when a kid comes up to the window already holding what he recognizes as one of the baskets he’s been handing out to his customers. It’s not like he’s been paying particularly close attention to the endless parade of people ready to fork over their credit cards in order to fill up on dubious-quality grease, but he thinks immediately that he would have remembered this boy if he’d come up to the window before. There’s probably nothing notable about him to the average person, but Clint doesn’t miss the way his clothes fit--everything too long, too big, though the kid hasn’t quite hit the gangly phase of adolescence yet. 

“I want to return this,” says the kid, plunking the basket down on the counter in front of Clint’s window. There’s half an order of cooled, congealed nachos in it, now being buzzed by flies. 

Clint makes a face, trying not to smell the way the cheese has already begun to turn rancid in the heat of the sun. “No refunds. All sales final.”

“But it’s bad,” the kid insists, holding the basket up closer.

“Sure,” says Clint. “ _Now_ it is. Wasn’t bad when I sold it.”

“I want my money back,” says the kid, his tone beginning to turn petulant.

“No refunds,” Clint repeats, as firmly as he dares. He reaches out and nudges the basket back in the kid’s direction. “Especially for people who didn’t buy anything here in the first place. Next in line, please.”

* * *

Natasha materializes in the booth sometime around noon. The lunch rush has just started on top of the steady stream of customers Clint’s had all day, and somehow he manages to be distracted enough that he doesn’t hear her come in until she’s standing right there at his shoulder. 

“Nice of you to drop by,” says Clint, trying to mask his surprise with the irritation that’s been building steadily. At this rate, he’s going to have to put a bell on her. In addition to the fancy new subcutaneous tracker she’s already sporting.

“Having fun?” she asks sweetly, glancing around.

“A blast,” Clint deadpans, reaching around her to dish up an order of fries so slathered in cheese and bacon that he’s pretty sure they’re screaming for their lives. In whatever language french fries speak.

Natasha glances out at the line, which is now wrapped around the booth and in danger of merging with the one for the nearby bumper cars, then makes a face. “People want to eat this?”

Clint snorts. “Welcome to America, Agent Romanoff. The land of many cheeses. Also bacon.”

“Keep your voice down,” she hisses, and he rolls his eyes at her before handing some breaded and fried cheese cubes to a blonde teenager, quickly swiping her card and returning it in the same motion. 

“You having a productive day?” asks Clint, hoping that’s vague enough to spare him any further reprimands.

She nods. “Found a few leads that are worth looking into.”

Clint sighs. He knows he ought to be glad that she’s enthusiastic about doing her job, that it will reflect well on her and on him by association, but it also means even more time being stuck here on his own, waiting for the data to accumulate from the payment system and her observations. He can be good at waiting, but only when it’s with some kind of purpose. And preferably with fewer horrible people.

“And you just came back to tell me you’d be gone the rest of the day?” he asks finally, trying to keep his voice even. He’s not _that_ unprofessional. Most of the time.

“No,” says Natasha. “Needed to get some gear.”

“Excuse me,” says the man who’s been waiting at the window, hopefully not paying too much attention to this exchange, not that it would make much sense to him if he was. “Can I order now?”

“Sure!” says Clint, with enough feigned cheeriness to earn a slightly horrified look from Natasha. “What’ll you have?”

“Two funnel cakes, please,” says the man, holding out a fistful of cash.

“We’re cashless now,” Clint tells him, still trying to look pleasant if only because now he has an audience. “Credit cards only. Also, no funnel cakes here. May I offer you some cheese?”

“No,” says the man, still holding the bills. “I want a funnel cake.”

“Don’t have any,” says Clint, his face beginning to hurt from the forced smile. “You’ll have to go next door.”

The man looks crestfallen as the reality of his funnel-cake-less existence finally begins to sink in. “Could you maybe check in the back?”

* * *

By the time the fair finally begins to shut down to the point that Clint feels comfortable closing the cheese cart’s window, it’s well after midnight. His head is pounding, it’s a miracle his teeth haven’t been ground completely smooth, and there’s an ache in his bones that reminds him of far too many ways he’s abused his body over the years. All told, he’s in a terrible mood, the kind that makes him want to get drunk and pick a fight, only _that_ particular urge has its own implications he’d rather not consider. 

He hasn’t seen Natasha since noon, and has spent no small part of the day wondering just exactly what she’s doing, what she possibly could have found to warrant this much of her attention. Or the alternative, that she hasn’t found anything at all and is simply avoiding him along with her newly-sworn duties to S.H.I.E.L.D. Neither possibility there is particularly attractive either. 

Once he’s gotten the various cooking equipment turned off and cooled down, is relatively certain that he isn’t going to set the cart on fire through sheer exhaustion, he turns his attention to the credit card reader and the bug Natasha set to mine the data. With a small amount of luck, the tiny gadget will have caught something today, and they can call it quits on this god-awful assignment. As soon as that happens, Clint’s planning to hightail it out of here and take a shower. Or maybe ten showers. At this rate, he’ll be permanently coated in cheese grease.

“What am I supposed to do with you?” he asks the card reader, because it’s not at all apparent how to get the data they need out of the thing. He’s worked with plenty of S.H.I.E.L.D. tech before, but computers have never been his thing without explicit training on how to use them. Design, he can do. Flight trajectory--of arrows or jets, thank you very much--he can do. But computers speak their own language, and it isn’t one he grew up learning. Sighing, he decides to leave the bug in place for Natasha to deal with whenever she comes back. The way his day’s been going, he’d probably end up accidentally deleting all of the data anyway. 

He’s half expecting Natasha to be in their trailer when he returns, but she’s still nowhere to be found. Frustration boiling over, Clint sits down on the edge of the lower bunk and jabs at the speed dial on his cell phone, resisting the urge to throw the thing at the wall just for the satisfaction of watching it shatter.

“How’s the cheese, Agent Barton?” Coulson’s voice comes through, far too cheery for either the circumstances or the time of night.

“I don’t know,” Clint deadpans. “I haven’t tasted it because that would be unprofessional. It says so right there in the briefing memo.”

“You have news for me?” asks Coulson, apparently not in the mood for small talk.

“Not exactly,” says Clint, contemplating the bed, which is beckoning him to lie back onto it. He still feels covered in grease, though, decides not to contaminate absolutely everything they’ve got here. “More like--the news is that I have no news.”

“You don’t call me when there’s no news, Barton.” The look of disapproval on Coulson’s face is coming loud and clear through the phone’s tiny speakers. 

Clint sighs. “Natasha--Romanoff’s been gone all day. Not _gone_ gone. At least, I don’t think so. But she’s been gone all day. Said she wanted to be more comprehensive than just the data mining. Around noon she said she had a lead, picked up some gear, and left.”

Coulson pauses, then draws in an audible breath. “Are you telling me this because you want me to send a team to investigate and pursue her? Because I don’t need to remind you how many times we tried that before you got through to her.”

Clint considers for a moment, then shakes his head before realizing that Coulson’ can’t see through the phone. “No, I’m not telling you that. I’m just saying--she needs to work on her communication skills in the field. And all the time, really. Seriously.”

Coulson laughs, just loud enough to hear through the phone. “So do you. And maybe you might want to rethink your attitude about this assignment, too.”

* * *

Clint spends longer in the trailer’s shower than he really ought to, all things considered. Then again, it’s not like they’re going to spend the full week of the fair’s duration out here, so they don’t need to conserve resources the same way the others in the company might. They don’t need to conserve resources the way he and Barney did when they were on the road together, too many years ago to consider now. 

He still doesn’t feel clean when he pulls on the gym clothes he’s using as pajamas, too much of the dust and the grease and the road under his skin to simply wash away. He’s resigned himself to another miserable night, wants nothing more than to collapse into his lumpy bunk and forget the world for a few hours.

“I was starting to wonder if you’d drowned in there.” 

Natasha’s voice from the kitchenette actually does make Clint jump yet again, nerves frayed by exhaustion and impatience, unprepared for another person in his space.

He sighs, raking a hand through his damp hair. “Nice of you to drop by.”

She’s sitting cross-legged at the table, a steaming mug of something by her left hand and a laptop open in front of her. Having traded the Yazbeck uniform for S.H.I.E.L.D. regulation black sweatpants and t-shirt, she looks impossibly benign, almost vulnerable. And she’s wearing reading glasses, he realizes as he comes to stand across from her, _that_ particular image twisting something strange in the pit of his stomach. 

“Thought I’d take a look at the credit transactions today,” says Natasha, looking up and meeting his gaze evenly. “See if our net caught anything.”

“And did it?” asks Clint, moving to look over her shoulder.

She shakes her head. “No. Well, I now have lots of evidence showing that Americans are incredibly willing to shell out a ridiculous amount of money on overpriced cheese. But aside from that, everything seems perfectly legitimate. Which I was afraid of.”

Clint winces, glancing at the readouts as she scrolls through them, though he has to admit he’s not entirely able to follow what she’s looking at. Still, he has no reason to question her conclusion. If anything, she’s been paying more attention to this op than he has.

“So that’s it, then. We’re done. We call in Coulson and get out of here.” He knows the words are too good to be true even as he’s saying them, but seeing the incredulity reflected on Natasha’s face is even worse, makes him realize how they must sound to her, how utterly childish he must seem right now. “I mean, I wish it was that simple.”

“Fortunately for you,” says Natasha, turning back to the computer and minimizing the credit card data, ‘we have more than just this to go on. I told you I did some poking around today while you were selling baskets full of clogged arteries.” 

She types a few quick commands into the computer and pulls up a gallery window, showing him a series of grainy, shadowy pictures in which he can nonetheless make out the image of several people in Yazbeck uniforms standing outside of a half dozen closely-grouped trailers. 

Clint shrugs. “What am I looking at? Suspicious standing? Those are probably their trailers. They’re probably on a break.”

“Sure,” says Natasha, zooming in on one of the images, which to Clint’s eye makes it harder to discern. “If they enjoy sleeping with horses and cows. Those are the livestock trailers. And they were there all day. Not always the same guys, they rotated in and out.”

“So you’re insinuating that they were on some kind of guard duty?” asks Clint, still struggling a bit to follow her. He hasn’t learned how to interpret the world through Natasha’s lens yet, wonders whether she knows enough about life beyond following orders to accurately judge the significance of any of this.

“Yes,” she says simply. “And they didn’t like it when I got too close, tried to chat them up.”

“They’re carnies at work, Natasha.” Clint runs a hand through his hair again, aware that it’s probably drying to look like he’s stuck his fingers into an electric socket. The rest of him doesn’t feel like it’s in much better shape than that. “They don’t want to chat with you. And they probably _were_ on guard duty if that’s where they keep the animals. In case you hadn’t noticed, animal welfare isn’t exactly a priority in this kind of circle. Probably keeping an eye out for protester nuts who might have been looking to try something funny.”

“Okay,” says Natasha, apparently still unconvinced. She closes the gallery window and pulls up yet another window on the laptop. “Then tell me why Yazbeck has two different sets of books. And why the official one only shows a dozen people on the payroll. There were easily four times that number at the meeting last night.”

“Again,” says Clint, feeling his patience thin to nonexistent levels, “they’re carnies. Tax evasion? Paying their staff under the table? That’s half the point of life on the road. But I don’t think that’s the kind of evidence Fury’s expecting us to bring home. He’s interested in the bigger picture, innocent people getting hurt. This is one for the IRS to tackle, not S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“You know,” Natasha says evenly, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were hoping not to find anything on Yazbeck.”

Clint takes a step back, crosses his arms. “What are you implying?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. You grew up in a place like this, right? Maybe you’re too close to see straight.”

Clint snorts and crooks a finger in the direction of her glasses. “You seem to be the one having that problem right now.”

Natasha rolls her eyes and slips the glasses off, folding them neatly before closing the laptop too. “You’re my SO, but I’m the one being field tested. I’m going to check this out more tomorrow.”

Clint sucks in a breath and blows it out in frustration, knowing that she’s right, that she’s captured enough evidence that now they can’t justify leaving without a more thorough investigation. “Fine.”

He takes two paces toward his bunk, then pauses and turns to look at her over his shoulder. 

“And I didn’t grow up with the fair. It was the circus. Still a different thing.”

He swears he can feel Natasha’s gaze on his back all the way to the bunks, can all but sense the smug little smile tugging almost imperceptibly at the corners of her lips.

* * *

“Nachos, please,” says Clint’s first customer of the morning. For a moment he thinks this is going to be a straightforward transaction, over in seconds, but then the woman pauses, studying the menu intently and making no move to produce a credit card.

“Something else I can get for you?” asks Clint, because it’s still early enough for him to have a little courtesy left in his daily quota. 

“Yeah,” says the woman. “I’m supposed to get something for my husband, but I don’t know what he wants. What do you think? Can you tell me?”

“Can I tell you what your husband wants?” Clint echoes, frowning.

“Yes?” The woman looks equally confused for a moment, as though she’s expected to find a fully functional mind-reader manning a fried cheese cart at the county fair. “Well no. I don’t know. What do men want?”

“You know,” says Clint, “the cart’s not going to disappear while you go ask him.”

* * *

“What sales do you have?” asks an older woman with two small grandchildren in tow. It isn’t even lunch time and she already looks harried. Or maybe she looks that way all the time. Clint thinks he certainly would be, if he had children to contend with.

“The prices are on the menu,” says Clint, pointing out the copy that’s permanently taped to the window. 

“Right,” says the woman. “But what’s on sale?”

“At restaurants,” says Clint, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, “they’re called _specials_. And we don’t have any here.”

* * *

Clint has to cup his hands around his mouth to shout loud enough to be heard above the din of the fair rides, people screaming, and the lunch rush line that’s formed outside his particular window. 

“The next person to ask for a funnel cake gets nacho cheese in the face! Funnel cakes are over there!”

* * *

“What’s a mozzarella finger?” asks a man with a beard that looks as though it hasn’t been groomed in months. 

“They’re like mozzarella sticks,” Clint deadpans, “except instead of the cheese, you make it out of fingers.”

The man blinks, gives Clint a look of horror for a moment before speaking. “Don’t the bones get stuck in your teeth?”

* * *

“Please tell me you found something to show Coulson,” says Clint by way of greeting when he returns to the trailer. 

Natasha’s attention is on the stove, or more precisely on a pot of something she’s stirring slowly. It’s an odd image, the Black Widow doing something as mundane as cooking, but then again, everything about this job seems sideways somehow.

“Not yet. Not hard evidence, anyway.” She glances at him over her shoulder. “You want dinner? I’m not going to eat all of this.”

Clint hesitates, a familiar sense of apprehension tightening his chest. It isn’t so much that he actually _believes_ Natasha would do anything to him, especially not when she’s still being monitored so closely by S.H.I.E.L.D., and when she’s had far better opportunities if she’d really wanted one. But he learned a long time ago to regard food as sacred, rarely puts anything in his mouth that he didn’t make or buy for himself. It feels odd now, the way she’s offered without a second thought, the doubts twisting themselves into the knot that’s already been sitting in his gut all day.

He shakes his head. “No thanks. I’m--not very hungry.”

She frowns. “What, did you eat too much of the merchandise?”

Clint shrugs, glad for the excuse, because now that he’s said the words aloud, they feel entirely ridiculous even to him. “Something like that.”

Natasha takes that at face value, or he thinks she does, at least. She turns off the burner and dumps a generous portion of her dinner--beans and sausages, he sees now--into a bowl before sitting at the table to eat it. Her laptop is open again, he realizes now that his attention isn’t all focused on the kitchenette, and she’s downloading something. Probably the latest set of data from the bug in the credit card reader.

Clint fidgets restlessly for a few moments, walking around the kitchen and glancing into the cabinets before concluding that he really doesn’t want anything to eat, at least not with Natasha as his audience. He thinks he can practically feel her judgment boring holes into the back of his dumb YA shirt, but when he glances over his shoulder, all of her attention is still on the computer screen. 

“Anything good?” he asks finally, grabbing a protein bar and a bottle of water, more for something to do with his hands than anything else.

“No,” says Natasha, glancing up at him and licking her lips in a gesture that isn’t quite predatory. “But I didn’t think there would be. Whatever Yazbeck’s hiding, it isn’t in the computer system. And I don’t think it’s stolen addresses or credit card numbers, either.”

“You get a better look at those trailers?” Clint presses, mostly because he’s growing increasingly desperate for _any_ kind of progress. Everything about this op is making his skin crawl with a feeling he can’t seem to shake, eerily like the old urges he used to get to run, to cut loose from the circus, from another dead-end job, from the army and just run to the ends of the Earth. He’d thought those days were well behind him. 

She shakes her head again. “Not yet. But I will.”

“The sooner the better,” says Clint, all too aware that he’s showing his hand. He turns to head into the back of the trailer, is stopped by the sound of her voice again.

“What was your boss hiding? When you were with the circus?”

He freezes for a moment, then turns to look at her over his shoulder, not meeting her eyes. “Who says there was anything?”

“Yesterday,” says Natasha, “you told me that half the purpose of carnies living on the road was so that crimes could be committed without fear of discovery. That’s the kind of thing you only learn from experience. So what was it?”

“Not what I said,” he answers firmly, and pulls out his phone. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of nothing to report to Coulson.”

* * *

Clint dreams of falling, of the way the air feels impossibly cold against his skin as his body slices through it, his blood turned to icy dread, the knowledge of the ground jerking upward to meet him, horrified cries of an audience turned witnesses in his ears.

He wakes with a jolt, his heart still pounding in his throat, clothes soaked through with sweat. His first impulse is to swing his feet over the side of his bunk and lunge for the nearest lamp, switching it on before reason kicks in and reminds him that he isn’t alone, that the light will wake Natasha and then he’ll have to explain--only it doesn’t. 

He’s still facing away from the bunks as his sleep-sluggish brain processes all of this, realizes that she’s probably now on full alert behind him, though the room is silent. Clint turns slowly, telegraphing every movement, unsure of what to expect. But when her bunk finally comes into view it’s empty, and his heart drops again. She must have managed to climb down and leave the trailer without waking him, which probably shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does at this point. 

Clint scrambles for his phone, picking it up and dialing the number S.H.I.E.L.D.’s assigned her for this mission. Nothing, of course, though he hadn’t had much hope of that working in the first place. His first thought is that she’s finally decided to make a run for it, decided S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t the fresh start she wanted after all, or perhaps planned this all along. She’s still supposed to be wearing an implanted tracker, though, and Clint thumbs his phone screen clumsily, pulling up the corresponding app he’s supposed to be able to use as her SO. To his surprise, he gets a trace immediately, the signal still within the near vicinity. So maybe she didn’t get very far without awakening him, maybe it was actually the sound of the trailer door closing that roused him. Or maybe she’s manipulated the program, he thinks a moment later, made it appear that she’s still on the premises to give herself a cleaner escape. 

There’s no way to tell besides following the signal for himself, so he wastes no time on dressing fully, just slips on his shoes and slings the strap of his quiver over his head before picking up his bow. Not exactly maintaining cover, but if Natasha is gone, that’s the least of anyone’s concerns.

The night is bitterly cold, and for a moment Clint curses himself for not thinking to bring a jacket, or at least wear something more suitable than a t-shirt. But there’s no time for that now, not if he wants to have any hope of catching Natasha. The midway is dark as he follows the tracker signal through it, the food carts and rides looming up around him like prehistoric beasts in hibernation. Goosebumps prickle over his skin and suddenly he isn’t sure whether they’re from the cold or from the sense of being utterly exposed out here, realizing how easy it would be for someone to launch a surprise attack, how there’s ample cover for anyone even slightly familiar with the layout to hide entirely. 

Clint keeps his head down because there’s no way to see anything in the dark, opts instead to listen for anything out of place in the environment. He has to fight the urge to break into a run, knowing that he’ll probably end up injuring himself or inviting an attack. Best to look casual, like he’s just running an errand to check on the cheese cart for the morning, or perhaps looking for cell reception out here in the middle of nowhere. 

He’s so wrapped up in following the signal while acting calm that he nearly runs face-first into a man still in Yazbeck uniform and standing in front of a trailer.

Clint stops short, nearly dropping the phone in his surprise. “Sorry. Excuse me. I was just--Do you know where I can get reception out here? Network’s useless outside big cities.”

“You’re new,” says the man, and it isn’t a question. It’s then that Clint realizes he’s standing in front of the trailers Natasha photographed the previous day, that this man must be on night guard duty. Definitely not the kind of thing he’d expect to find here, unless something is a lot more wrong than he’s been willing to admit.

“Yep,” Clint agrees, his own voice sounding strange in his ears. “Just got hired a few days ago. How’d you know?”

“If you weren’t,” says the man, “you’d know not to come poking around here. This area is off-limits.”

“Sure,” says Clint, feigning nonchalance. “It’s employees only, but I’m an employee, aren’t I?”

The man doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t pause, just pulls a handgun from the holster that’s been concealed beneath the long hem of his ridiculous shirt and levels it at Clint’s head. “Who do you work for?”

“Yazbeck Amusements,” says Clint, still trying for an air of innocence, though now the panicked surprise in his tone is far too real. 

“No.” The guard takes two steps closer, the gun practically at point blank range. “You a cop or FBI?”

“What are you talking about?” asks Clint, trying to calculate how long it would take him to reach one of the arrows in his quiver and stab his assailant straight through the eye with it. Too much time, he concludes. He’d be shot before he even had his fingers on the fletching. The other two options are to let this play out or try and make a run for it. He doesn’t like either, but the latter is the only one that’s even marginally acceptable. 

Taking a breath, Clint prepares to turn, can practically sense the shot he knows will be coming at the back of his head. He’s about to dive for the ground when there’s another sound slicing through the stillness of the night and the guard falls to the ground in an unceremonious heap. 

Natasha is standing on the other side of his body, a S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue stun gun still hot in her hand. She arches an eyebrow. “Nice of you to join the party. You were getting a bit past _fashionably late._ ”

“Thanks,” Clint breathes, his entire being still feeling off-kilter. He can’t seem to gain his equilibrium again, can’t get into the zone of calm and focus that he normally finds when he’s in the field. 

She nods. “I want to see what’s in these trailers before anyone else gets ideas about showing up, don’t you?”

“You came in here to break into them,” says Clint, the pieces suddenly falling into place. Shame rises quickly in the back of his throat, at doubting her tonight, at taking this entire assignment for granted. That particular mistake could have cost his life a minute ago. 

“Yes,” says Natasha. “Left you a note and everything, which you apparently didn't see.” She cocks her head toward the trailer. “How good are you at picking locks?”

Clint smiles, a shred of his confidence beginning to return. He reaches into his quiver and pulls out an arrow he keeps just for instances like this one. “Don’t need to be.”

He climbs the steps up to the trailer in two long strides, then winds up his arm for a moment before jabbing the arrow into the lock as hard as he can. The fragile glass tip on the arrow shatters, releasing the acid inside. The lock is a mess of warped metal a scant few seconds later and he pushes the door open, gesturing for Natasha to follow.

The scene inside makes Clint’s stomach turn. There aren’t any animals here, he sees immediately. In fact, the shadowy glimpses of animals and hay that Natasha captured in her pictures are only an illusion, pictures pasted into all of the windows to stop curious onlookers from seeing what’s really here. In reality, the trailer is lined with as many dirty mattresses as it’s possible to fit on the floor, and each one is occupied by a child who looks utterly devoid of hope, staring back at them as though this intrusion is nothing out of the ordinary, is simply another part of a life that’s entirely beyond their control. Among them, Clint recognizes the boy who’d tried to return half-eaten food for money, probably wanted the cash for a future where he won’t be on the road anymore, won’t _need_ to endure conditions like this. For a moment, Clint is absolutely certain that he’s going to be sick, between the smell of unwashed bodies and the memories careening through his mind.

Beside him, Natasha takes a long breath. “I think you’ve finally got your evidence for Coulson.”

* * *

By dawn, the fairground is crawling with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and nearly three dozen employees have been taken into custody, including Yazbeck himself. The children, it turns out, have come from the towns the fair has traveled through in the past three years, outcasts given the promise of a better future and instead put to work picking up trash and building attractions with no resources to choose a different sort of life.

“Agent Romanoff,” says Coulson, nodding as he moves to stand between them in front of the cheese cart, which cuts a bizarre image due to the painted mozzarella fingers appearing to emerge from the back of his head. “Agent Barton.”

“Agent Coulson,” says Natasha, giving him the barest hint of a satisfied smile.

“Well,” says Coulson, “this is a surprise.”

“You’re surprised we completed the assignment?” asks Natasha, not quite succeeding in removing the incredulity from her tone.

Coulson grins. “No, I was pretty sure you’d do that. I just wasn’t expecting its completion to involve--well, any of this.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.’s intel only led to suspicion of identity theft?” asks Clint.

“No,” says Coulson. “S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t have any intel on Yazbeck. The fraud investigation? That was never real. We just wanted to see how well you’d work together. We never imagined you’d end up uncovering an actual crime.”

Clint scrubs a hand across his face, annoyance and the exhaustion of the last few days still taking their toll. “I _told_ you this was a waste of time.”

“But it wasn’t,” Coulson insists, and Clint really can’t argue with that under the circumstances. 

“ _You_ tried to waste our time,” Clint amends. 

Coulson just laughs. “Pretty much, yeah. Luckily for you, your new partner wasn't going to stand for that.”

* * *

“It wasn’t my boss,” says Clint, and he can’t deny the swell of satisfaction he feels when Natasha startles a bit.

She’s been packing up the gear in their trailer, but now she turns to focus on him instead. “What?”

“You asked what my boss in the circus was hiding,” says Clint, the words an effort, pretty much the last thing he wants to be thinking about right now. But he owes her this, he thinks, and more. “It was my--you’d say ‘handler,’ probably, but to me he was--more like family.”

“You looked up to him,” says Natasha.

Clint nods. “He was--kind of everything my dad wasn’t. Taught me a lot of what I know today. But then I found out he’d been stealing money. Not just from the owner, from all of us. It’s--there are moral gray areas on the road, you know? Stealing from the government was one thing. Stealing from your fellow carnies--that’s unforgivable.”

Natasha takes half a step toward him, watching intently as he paints the picture of this story. “You tried to stop him.”

“Yes,” says Clint. “But I was just a kid. And not--I didn’t learn to fight like you did. I didn’t know how until much later, and even then, it took me a long time to get good enough to defend myself. So--he tried to kill me to cover his tracks. Probably thought he succeeded, I don’t know.”

“But he didn’t,” says Natasha, reaching out to rest a hand on his forearm, warm and feather-light. 

Clint swallows, then grabs her hand, squeezes it lightly. “Come on.”

* * *

The fair grounds are all but deserted, S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel having taken control of everything and closed it to the public. But the rides are still up, still mostly functional, and Clint isn’t about to let that opportunity be wasted.

“Just wait until we get in and then push the button,” Clint tells the agent who currently has custody of the Fire Ball ride controls. 

She gives him a skeptical look. “You sure that was Agent Coulson’s orders?”

“Absolutely,” Clint lies, though he’s fairly certain Coulson will have his back on this one.

He doesn’t give his colleague any more time to reconsider, vaulting over the side of the car to strap himself in next to Natasha. For a moment he thinks that Natasha might protest, that she might not understand the point of this, but she stays silent. And then the ride is off, climbing the bottom half of the circular track first, then ever higher and higher until they’re upside down, adrenaline singing through his veins.

He glances over at Natasha as they hang in the air for a beat, finds her smiling so brightly that it seems as if she’s actually managed to touch the sky, a mirror image of everything he’s feeling in this moment as they're flying. Then the ride shifts again, the ground hurtling up to meet them for a moment before they’re off and launching upward again. 

Clint meets Natasha’s eyes for a second, throws his hands into the air and lets the future come rushing toward them both.


End file.
